Martha Bißmann is a project manager who is serving as an independent MP in the Austrian Parliament.
Biography
Bißmann grew up as the eighth of nine children in Graz. She studied at and graduated in 2006 with a Dipl.-Ing. degree. During her studies, she was active in the intercultural exchange program and club culture series Brighton Calling, which initiated and organized political programming. Bißmann is co-founder of the ELEVATE festival for contemporary music and political discourse in Graz. From 2003 to 2005 she was a board member of the Styrian Education Workshop of the Greens. She wrote her diploma thesis, which examined the technical and economic possibilities for wind-driven seawater desalination, while working as an energy expert in an Austrian Agency for Development Cooperation project in Cape Verde. After graduation, she moved to Munich and worked as a project manager for EU-funded sustainability campaigns and research network projects climate protection and renewable energy. The climate protection campaign Energy Union which Bißmann initiated placed second in the 2013 Sustainable Energy Europe Award. She also worked on an EEMusic Energy Efficient Music Culture project which networked and trained festivals and club operators from 28 European countries in climate protection.
Political career
At the beginning of 2016 Bißmann worked as a campaign manager for the presidential election campaign of Irmgard Griss. From July to August 2017 she was head of the direct democracy campaign "Österreich Entscheidung" in Vienna. In the Nationalrat election on 15 October 2017, she ran on the list Peter Pilz – in the 2nd position for the district of Styria, directly behind the native Styrian Peter Pilz. The list won a mandate in Styria during the election. After list founder Pilz resigned in early November 2017, Bißmann assumed the mandate and was proclaimed a member of the National Council. She became Group Spokesperson on Environment, Energy, Transport, Agriculture, Development Cooperation, Sport and Citizen Participation. On 19 July 2018 Bißmann was excluded from the parliamentary group "Liste Pilz". Since then, she has been the only non – parliamentary member of the National Council to represent the agendas of the climate protection community and to promote the rights of minorities and anti-hatred in the network. During her two years as Member of the Austrian Nactional Council, Bißmann delivered 69 speeches.
